Knitted gloves are commonly used in handling and light assembly conditions. Knitted gloves used for these purposes are currently made using knitting machines that knit the gloves using eight basic components to comprise the glove. These eight components include one component each for the five fingers, two components for the palm including a upper section and a lower section, and one component for the wrist area. Conventional knitting processes use a knitting machine to knit each of these areas in a particular sequence, generally one finger at a time, beginning with the pinky finger and continuing on through the ring finger and middle finger to the forefinger. The knitting machine then knits the upper section of the palm, followed by the thumb and the lower section of the palm. Finally, the knitting machine knits the wrist component to the desired length.
The knitting stitches used at the fingertips are generally tighter than the stitches used elsewhere in the glove to improve the strength of the glove in this area where more pressure is likely to be applied. Depending on the needles used to knit the gloves, a certain number of courses are used to create each of the eight components of the glove. The finer the gauge of needle used, the higher the number of courses for each component to create the same size finished glove. While this standardization in needle size and number of courses permits the manufacturing of a glove or liner with a standard shape, that shape does not accommodate variations in size and shape of individual fingers and hands.
Standard shape gloves or liners created by the current processes bring with them several disadvantages. First, the fit across finger knuckles and the center of the palm is tight, reducing glove or liner flexibility and ultimately reducing hand dexterity. Second, the standard gloves or liners bag or gap in areas where the hand normally tapers, like the lower palm and wrist area. This bagginess or gapping results in excess fabric which can bunch and catch on protruding objects. Additionally, excess fabric at the lower palm created by the standard glove or liner shape causes an irregular foam line on those liners that are dipped in latex. Finally, the excess fabric at the lower palm of the standard glove or liner causes a high scrap rate in printing information on the gloves or liners.
In an attempt to solve these problems, knit gloves or liners can be made of a larger than standard size to shrink them to achieve a better fit. These larger gloves are reduced in size by tumbling them in heat or using a laundry process. These processes as used on the larger gloves, however, may produce gloves that have improved fit across the knuckles, but do not address the excess fabric in areas where the hand normally tapers, like the lower palm and wrist. Additionally, tumbling or a laundry process would require an additional manufacturing step as well as additional labor, both of which would increase the cost of the finished product. A standard tumbling process, using constant heat and time, would also fail to create the desired gloves and liners because of differences in heat sensitivity to the fibers used to knit the various gloves and liners. Further, these types of post-knitting processes would require additional development and manufacturing time to determine appropriate time and heat combinations to optimize glove or liner production. A glove that could be made to fit the contours of a human hand better to improve grip and that would not require post-knitting processing would therefore be an important improvement in the art.